Chapter Text
Eventually, Link had to break away from Sesami’s group to start running tasks – he knew today needed to be quiet, certainly, but he would never forgive himself if he didn’t get anything done.
There was a man in the stable who’d offered to trade him a diamond for fifty-five rushrooms, so Link wanted to start gathering those. He needed to activate the tower nearby as well, sooner rather than later, and of course there were Koroks everywhere- and he’d seen quite a few ore nodes around…
“What’s on the list today, little brother?” Daruk asked cheerfully, and Link immediately started enthusiastically explaining, scanning the cliffs for a good place to climb up. Mipha chuckled softly.
“You seem cheerful today,” she noted, an undertone of curiosity in her voice, and Link paused to consider.
It was true. After the stress and exhaustion of yesterday, and how much he was paying for it today, he’d have expected to be in a darker mood. And indeed, he could feel an echo of that oversensitivity now, that stretched-thin and overwhelmed feeling. He slowed to a walk, never faltering in his steady scan of the area, and hummed when Mipha tilted her head quizzically.
I’m glad I was able to help them, he said at last, decisively, and picked a place to start climbing, fingers digging into the rough stone and feet scrambling for a hold. Behind him, Mipha laughed.
Daruk reached the top first without Link’s notice, grinning at him as he poked his head up, huffing and panting. “Never hold still for a moment, do you?” he murmured, and then, “They seemed mighty grateful, brother. You did a good thing, helpin’ them out.”
Link beamed at him, signing as he caught his breath; the exertion left him briefly dizzy, but it cleared up soon enough. I’ll have to finish clearing the path again soon. That hinox can’t be good for business.
Urbosa snorted disdainfully, catching the tail end. “Under ordinary circumstances, the Gerudo guard ought to be able to handle it themselves.” She paused, and then reluctantly, “But if they’re having trouble, I suppose some help would be appreciated.”
Link gave her a small smile, brushing himself off and starting to walk. Revali fell in beside him, huffing.
“Your non-confrontational mood certainly didn’t last very long,” Revali muttered acerbically, and Link cocked an eyebrow. Revali snorted at him. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to show off those sword skills you used to be so well known for.”
Link faltered, expression creasing, and Revali’s expression fell into a scowl and he looked away quickly. Mipha filled in, something about her voice soothing even when very little was wrong.
Well. If one could count ‘remembering nothing about one’s own past’ as being very little, but that was just the hand Link currently held.
“You were famous for being a prodigy even before the sword of legend accepted you,” Mipha explained, eyes bright and fond. “You were beating grown men in the ring by the time you were four.”
Link hesitated, and then asked tentatively, Who taught me?
“Your father did,” Urbosa said unexpectedly, without looking at him. “He was a member of the royal guard. For Malon, the late queen, and then for the king following her death.”
Link swallowed, unsure how to express or process the emotions swelling up in the wake of this information. My mother?
“…I don’t know. I’m sorry.” And Urbosa did sound genuinely apologetic. When Link looked hopefully at Mipha, she shook her head as well, and Link deflated.
How many more things had time swallowed that Link would never know, because his memory had failed him?
If he didn’t record this somewhere, would this be lost to him too?
Thank you, he said instead, as earnest as he could, looking at Urbosa. She let out a sigh, and nodded silently.
“Your ma worked in the palace too,” Daruk said unexpectedly, and grinned when Link jumped and looked at him with more desperation than he would admit. “In the stables, I think, trained and bred the horses. She gave you your Epona, and a better-trained mare I’d never seen anywhere.”
Epona, Link mouthed to himself, and then, fingerspelling, E-p-o-n-a, and then, in a flash of intuition, signed something like e-pony.
Daruk laughed out loud. “Yeah, that’s the sign. Always thought it was real clever. She was trained with sign, too, I saw you use it with her a couple times.”
Link beamed hard enough to make his cheeks ache with his arms and legs.
From the top of the tower, Link could see what he guessed could only be a Divine Beast – an enormous machine shaped like a camel, laboriously pacing circles in the desert and kicking up a sandstorm that covered nearly a quarter of it. Even from so far away, Link could see lightning flashing in the clouds around it.
He watched it for almost thirty minutes, relishing in the quiet that blanketed the top of the tower, before finally slipping off the edge and opening his paraglider. He dropped back to the ring of stone around the bog-muck, where his friends were waiting, and shook the dust off himself.
Did it have a name? he asked Urbosa, gesturing in the direction of the beast.
Real grief flashed across her eyes, so quick that Link almost missed it. “Vah Naboris,” she answered, no sign of her turmoil in her voice, and then, in sign, V-N, her closed fist pulling down from one letter to the other in a way that denoted power.
Link echoed the sign and nodded, refraining from glancing over his shoulder, and started on the way back down to the stable. Forty rushrooms wasn’t a bad haul, considering he’d started with eleven, and he’d gotten a decent amount of good ore that Urbosa assured him he’d be able to sell in the city. That, some weapons, and a handful of darner dragonflies meant that he’d be in excellent shape to tackle the desert the next day-
Link’s thoughts stuttered to a halt as he dropped down closer to the path, close enough to see a traveler limping along the canyon road, clearly struggling to even manage that much. His stomach swooped with guilt, head turning to follow the path behind them as if to see the monsters still left.
He should have taken care of the damn hinox, overexertion be damned.
“Wait-” Urbosa started, voice sharp with suspicion, but Link wasn’t listening. He brought out his paraglider again and dropped down close enough to the traveler to catch their attention, already fumbling with the slate.
“Do you need help?” Zelda’s voice asked, calm and collected and familiar.
The traveler looked at the slate first, and Link held back a frustrated sigh, eyes already scanning the traveler automatically to find their injuries. Then their mouth spread into a vicious smile.
“That’s an interesting bit of Sheikah technology you have there,” they said, and straightened upright. Link froze, muscles going stiff and uncooperative as he rang with the notion that something was horribly wrong. It took everything he had, suddenly, not to lash out at the person in front of him.
Was Link imagining the faint taste of malice at the back of his throat?
“And an even more interesting,” they continued, taking a step toward Link, and then another when Link stepped back, “mark of the goddess you have on your hand… hero of Hylia.” Their grin widened, something wild in their eyes. “I will take your life in the name of the Yiga.”
Someone else might have been too slow seeing the sickle coming towards them to react. As it was, time slowed down for Link, his heart speeding up in the rush of battle, but he still only just twisted out of the way in time, and what would have been a neat slice across his throat turned into a vicious score down his arm. He gasped in pain, feeling hot blood well up from the wound.
It didn’t stop him from reaching for the spear strapped to his back; he didn’t know what kind of training he’d gotten as a child, but he found that his body moved exactly as he needed no matter how exhausted or painful it was.
His blood roared in his ears, his breath coming too hard for so little exertion, but Link ignored it all and sidestepped the man’s next blow to plunge the speartip into their gut, earning a hoarse shout. Ducked under another swipe of the sickle, the traveler’s vicious grin dissolving into a foul snarl, and Link did taste malice and it tasted like the presence of guardians.
He stabbed again, his footwork neat and precise even as his muscles tried to tremble, and the traveler didn’t dodge in time, taking it deep into his stomach and doubling over in obvious pain. They tried to lash out with the scythe again, much weaker and slower, and Link kicked them in the chest, sending the traveler tumbling to the ground.
The man coughed harshly, gestured, and was gone in a rush of magic.
Link panted, staring at the spot where they had disappeared, struggling to understand what had just happened. Why there was blood running down his arm, and his heartbeat racing in his throat.
That had been a person.
That hadn’t been a monster, a bokoblin or a moblin or lizalfos, but a Hylian person, who had recognized him, set a trap just for him, and tried to kill him. Who had surprised him badly enough to score first blood.
Because his guard had been down. He’d been in a good mood, and his guard was down.
He tasted bile.
“Alright, little brother,” Daruk said, suddenly beside Link and startling him into lashing out with his elbow. He missed, but Daruk raised his empty hands anyway, a shadow over his eyes. “Easy, brother, let’s get you to the stable. You need to be patched up.”
“I saw you brew a hearty elixir, that will help,” Mipha added anxiously, stepping up beside Daruk and meeting Link’s wide eyes. “Take it, Link. You can always make another.”
Link swallowed and nodded halfheartedly, feeling his heart still beating a tattoo into his chest. He freed a hearty potion and drank it down, and it at least stopped the blood dripping down his elbow.
His hands were shaking, Goddess damn it. He clamped one over the wound protectively, not looking at anyone. Swallowed bile again as his stomach roiled.
Yiga, he spelled with one hand. Mipha made a soft, hurt sound.
“I didn’t think they’d find you so quickly,” she murmured, and looked down at his hand. “I… hadn’t noticed the goddess mark.”
The mark was still very faint, it was true, not nearly as noticeable as the various shades of soul paint starting to splash over his fingers and palms. But it shone in the light. Link tried to shove down the urge to cover it.
“You know the Yiga, brother,” Daruk said, with a steady calm Link latched onto. “You were told about them in Kakariko, weren’t you?” Link nodded. “And you beat them easily. You’re skilled with a blade.” Link nodded again. “Get to the stable so someone can bandage you up, little brother. Eat some food. You’ll feel better.”
Link nodded, throat thick and aching with unhappiness.
“The Yiga always show up when it’s least convenient, don’t they,” Urbosa muttered icily, and Mipha sighed.
The pleasant, proud high that had held Link up through the morning had long since dissolved by the time he reached the stable again, darkness starting to fall over the canyon. The stablemaster waved as Link approached, but his expression turned to concern as he registered the wound Link was still covering.
“Finally run out of luck?” he called out sympathetically, turning to beckon someone from deeper in the stable.
Link missed most of the ensuing conversation, but at the end of it, Oliff hurried out of the stable, brow deeply furrowed. Link shrank in on himself, head turning away as a sense of shame swept over him, but all he was met with was Mipha, silently urging him onward.
“Let me see,” Oliff said, so firmly that Link let go of the wound without thinking, keeping a wary eye on Oliff nonetheless, like he would suddenly grin- “Not as bad as it could have been- did you have an elixir on you?” Link nodded, breath short. “Good, that’s good- sit down, we need to bandage this up. I’d stitch it but unfortunately I’m no doctor.”
Link found himself being shuffled over to the cooking pot again, Oliff suddenly as fussy as a mother duck, sitting Link down and where had he gotten that roll of bandages? Why couldn’t Link stop staring at his hands like they were alien?
It wasn’t until Link was holding his arm out and Oliff was wiping the wound out, making Link hiss, that Oliff finally asked quietly, “How did anything get you this badly?”
Link fumbled for the Sheikah Slate, messing with the options that popped up under the communication rune. The pressure to respond quickly seemed less at the moment, Oliff focused mostly on cleaning away sand and then on wrapping the cloth around and around, ignoring Link’s grunts of displeasure, and eventually Link replied, “Hylian. Traveler. Ambush. Yiga clan. It was a surprise.”
“Ah,” Oliff breathed, tying the bandage off. Link flicked his head, grimacing. “I’ve heard of the Yiga Clan. What manner of ambush, if I may ask?”
His voice was carefully neutral, almost indifferent. Link didn’t like it. His ears were starting to twitch with agitation, and he tried to shrug it off, rubbing his palms against his thighs before he reached to answer. “From the bridge. Injured. Traveler. Ambush.”
Urbosa had tried to warn him. She’d known something was wrong. How had she known something was wrong?
He glanced up, and found that Urbosa and Revali were watching the path on one side, Mipha and Daruk on the other. Instantly, he started to settle, relief sweeping over him.
Oblivious, Oliff hummed disapproving. “How lowly. But you of all people know that there were few bokoblin left in the canyon after last night, so why-”
“Hinox,” Link cut him off, still angry at himself for leaving that opening. There was the camp as well, and the mounted bokoblin – but the hinox was nearly unavoidable and it was the first thing he’d thought of.
Oliff hesitated. “I had rumors that there was a hinox on the bridge, but we didn’t encounter one, so we assumed that they were false. Did you…?”
Despite everything, there was a touch of awe in his voice. Link laughed weakly, reaching up to rub at his face in frustration. He hissed as the movement pulled at the gash in his arm, and then nodded.
Link tested the range of movement in his arm – it made him wince, pain shooting up his shoulder and making his breath catch, but he could move it as he needed, powering through the feeling with a will he hadn’t quite realized he possessed.
He reached for the slate again. “I’ll handle it. Tomorrow.”
Oliff stared at him for a moment, from his eyes to the freshly bandaged wound and back to his face, clearly trying to figure out if he was serious, and Link stared evenly back. After an eternity, Oliff covered his face and let out a weak, slightly incredulous chuckle.
“I’d offer to help,” he said, “but I think I would be more of a hindrance.”
Link shrugged, released a small bowl of food from his slate, and absently started to dig in, trying to remind himself that his friends were watching the road and he didn’t need to.
He only sort of succeeded, and spent a lot of the rest of that night by the cooking pot, running through sword forms and keeping an eye on the road.
After a night of sleep that was fitful at best, Link set out early the next morning, scarcely looking at anybody and refusing to even glance at any of the travelers he passed.
It wasn’t like him, and he knew his friends noticed, mostly because they didn’t seem to care if he overheard them talking about him. He wasn’t sure whether he appreciated or resented it, and he tried not to think too closely about it either way. He felt jittery and stretched, but he steadfastly ignored it.
“-should have told him,” Revali was saying, icy and irritable.
“The situation is fragile,” Mipha said sharply. “You know it, I know it, we’ve made significant efforts to keep it as stable as we can- perhaps it would have helped, Revali, but perhaps it wouldn’t have.”
“Is that the principle we’re planning on going with from here on out?” Revali asked acerbically. “Let’s not make any changes, for fear of making things worse for our delicate hero?”
Mipha took a deep, loud breath and let it out in a soft hiss. “I know you’re worried too, but I feel that allowing Link to handle himself is the best approach for now. We can adjust it if the situation changes.”
“It hasn’t yet been a full month,” Daruk pitched in, soft and heavy. “Let him have some time, Revali. It ain’t like you to be so impatient when it counts.”
Revali scoffed. “Some things can’t wait. We should have told him about the Yiga when he strayed so close to their headquarters.”
“Perhaps,” Urbosa inserted, cutting across the commotion. “But we didn’t.”
I can hear you, Link signed over his shoulder at last, and to his surprise, Daruk let out a hearty, warm chuckle.
“We know, little brother. No worries. Taking care of that hinox?”
Link nodded. And the bokoblin.
“You sure you’re up for it? No one would blame you for just moving right along with that arm. Anyone passing through often probably knows what they’re up against already.”
It was worse than Daruk had probably realized; Link was so nauseous he felt like vomiting, and his head ached in a tight band around his temples. There was a faint spin to his head that hadn’t faded since he’d gotten up that morning.
Link shrugged, pulled himself up to settle on a high ledge, and drew his bow, setting his sights on the bokoblin camp below.
“Speaking of things he needs to be told…” Revali murmured, almost too soft for Link to hear.
“Too far, Revali,” Mipha said with warning, and Revali fell silent.
It took the better part of the morning for Link to deal with the bokoblin camp and the mounted bokoblin just at the end of the bridge – one of them, he noticed with some amusement, running around on foot where he’d stolen its horse – which just left the hinox sleeping on the island.
He’d reopened the wound on his arm, he could feel, and it was threatening to bleed through the bandage wrapped around it. Bruises were stacking on top of bruises, which was just the price he paid for letting himself get hit so many times. His head was starting to pound.
And there was Beedle, trudging up the bridge and stopping halfway across. Link guessed, with that backpack, there was no way he was going to be able to take an alternate route; he was probably planning to sneak by.
Not a bad plan, especially if he’d done it before, but not great either. Link glanced helplessly at his friends, wishing they could help, before just shaking himself and marching down to the hinox. That would probably catch Beedle’s attention, and he would stay back.
Goddess, Link hoped he would stay back. He really wasn’t in the mood for an argument right now.
Fortunately enough, Beedle did notice him and he did stay back – he also started waving Link back furiously, frantic and flailing, but that was easy enough for Link to ignore while Beedle was still so fretful about waking the hinox. Instead, Link heaved himself up onto the hinox’s belly, ignoring it as it started to stir, and plunged a rusty claymore deep into its throat.
That didn’t kill it, of course – it was far too big – but its single eye bulged open in pain, and Link took the chance to fire an arrow into it before sliding off and grabbing for another, better sword.
Mipha had coached him through most of this process – something as big as a hinox took a more systematic approach to take down by yourself, but, she assured Link, it was entirely possible if you were skilled and brave enough. His arm started to screech in pain, his bruised body protesting the impact of abandoning the hinox, but Link pushed through it, jaw clenched.
Better to take care of the hinox now than leave another opening.
By the time the hinox had stumbled to its feet, bellowing in pain, Link was already at its ankles, slicing as deeply as his arms could handle. Its legs gave out under it, and Link had to throw himself away from its slapping, heavy hands, hitting the ground hard enough to make it shake. Link hissed too, faltering as the harsh movements made his body throb and his stomach turn.
The hinox roared. Link stepped back, grimacing, and shot a fire arrow at its throat alongside the claymore still stuck there. Then a shock arrow for good measure.
With a few convulsions, the hinox fell limp, and Link contemplated just rolling it off the edge into the lake without even picking anything off it. Then, with a sigh, he strode over to it, rolled it face-up, and started untangling the trophy weapons it had tied around its neck.
He couldn’t help but tense as he heard footsteps pounding closer, but in an instant, Mipha was there, soft voice and calm tone. “It’s just Beedle, Link. You like Beedle.”
Link nodded tightly, placed each of the weapons into his Sheikah Slate, and crawled up to pry the hinox’s mouth open and pull a few promising-looking teeth, prying them out with his hunting knife.
“You know, there are easier ways to get money,” Beedle wheezed, an undercurrent of shock and awe to his voice. Link shrugged, tucked the teeth away too, and slid down to cut the hinox’s belly open.
Stomach from hinoxes, liver from moblin, the still-beating heart of bokoblin and lynels – Mipha had been very helpful in explaining what organs were best for elixirs.
Road’s clear, he signed without looking up, digging in with a grimace. The insides of monsters were so goddess-damned slimy, and his arm was protesting the extra use, but he just wanted to get this done.
Teeth and guts and toenails-
“…Sorry, what was that?” Beedle asked awkwardly. Link sighed and waved him on, but Beedle lingered, actually coming closer. “Hey- hey, is that a bandage? Looks like you’ve bled through.”
Startled, Link looked down at his arm. Indeed, the extra exertion had finally reopened the wound enough that he’d bled fully through the bandages and left a large red spot. That explained why it hurt so badly.
“I’ll show you how to change it later,” Mipha said quietly, and Link nodded.
He cut out the stomach and added it to the Sheikah Slate, then pushed himself further down to start fiddling halfheartedly with the hinox’s feet.
A few more minutes of silence passed. Beedle stayed, and no other travelers came by. Link added the hinox’s two big toenails to the slate, wiped his hands off, and looked up, cocking his head wearily.
When he met his eyes, Beedle grinned.
“I didn’t know there was anyone that could take on a hinox alone!” he chirped cheerfully, apparently recovered from his surprise. Link shrugged, making his arm burn, and Beedle barged on. “It’s a real treat meeting you here, the route through Gerudo Canyon always has so many monsters-”
Despite himself, Link smiled faintly, picked at his slate a little, and came up with, “The road is clear.”
There was a split second’s pause, and then Beedle grinned. His eyes flickered to Link’s bandaged arm, so quickly Link almost could have missed it.
“Wowie!” Beedle declared instead, doing a little jig in place. “We must be bound by fate! Oh, but not too bound- wouldn’t dream of stopping either of our travels.”
Link could see just a flash of the green in the palm of Beedle’s hand – was it a few shades darker than it had been before? He rolled his shoulders, hissing at the ache and pull, and climbed to his feet, forcing himself not to sway as his head spun. Then he nodded down the road and started the work of rolling the hinox off into the water. No reason to frighten anyone.
Beedle still didn’t take the hint, waiting around for Link to finish. Without turning to face him, Link frowned a little.
“Why don’t you just go with him, little brother?” Daruk encouraged quietly, leaning down as if to keep their conversation private. “He seems the patient type, might keep waiting around here all day if you don’t.”
Link snorted and flicked his head, dismissing the idea, but turned and started to walk with Beedle, glancing back over the road to make sure they weren’t being followed. He didn’t miss the way Beedle cast fleeting looks at the remains of the bokoblin they passed by, but for some reason the man didn’t comment.
“I’ll walk ahead,” Urbosa said, after a while of watching him with an inscrutable expression. “I expect I’m best able to identify members of the Yiga in disguise. As Revali mentioned, their headquarters are quite close to here.”
Link gave her a grateful nod, some of the tension easing out of his shoulders, and she strode on ahead while Daruk and Revali fell back. Mipha stayed close, casting quick, worried looks at his arm, her hands twitching up every so often as if to touch it.
“So, arrows!” Beedle said brightly, when they’d been quiet for so long that they’d nearly reached the stable. “I brought about forty, if that’s good. Same trade as last time, arrows for monster parts?”
Link cast him a weary smile, nodding without hesitation. I’ve got two dozen bokoblin horns, a dozen fangs, eight bokoblin hearts, two moblin livers, and seven moblin horns. I can go up or down if you need.
He actually had a bit more, but he’d picked up at Outskirt that magic-dense monster parts, like gems, were more of a specialty item than something bought or sold by casual merchants.
“Looks like you’re the one turning a profit here,” Beedle teased, like he didn’t sell the parts for twice what he paid Link for them. “It’s good to have another monster hunter ‘round, though. Parts are always pretty thin on the ground.”
Link raised his eyebrows, half his attention occupied trying to do math in his head. The blood moons should be keeping people fairly well supplied, with such reliable places to find concentrations of monsters-
“Even people skilled with a sword don’t usually have it in them to kill more than a bokoblin or two,” Beedle explained, correctly interpreting Link’s expression, to his surprise. “At this rate, I’m going to have to reduce the price I sell monster parts at!”
He didn’t seem too upset about it, but Link apologized anyway, a swift and simple sign. Beedle laughed.
“No worries, friend! It’s amazing. You should’ve seen the face of the first doctor I ran into when I told her I had two dozen bokoblin horns for her.”
Link’s mouth opened, and Mipha inserted gently, “Most monster parts go to doctors to make elixirs, especially the more powerful ones – lynel hearts, hinox stomachs. The magical healing properties are invaluable.”
Oh. Link hadn’t realized that.
He gave Mipha a small, pleased smile, and she grinned warmly back, eyes sparkling with delight. Then, finally, he flicked through his Sheikah Slate with grimy hands and asked, “Are you stopping at? Gerudo Canyon. Stable.”
“I was gonna continue on to Kara Kara Bazaar and stop at the stable on my way back!” Beedle said cheerfully. “I’d love to go into the city itself-” Urbosa snorted derisively. “-but that’s not allowed.”
Link glanced at Urbosa in question. Urbosa flicked her hand, dismissing him.
“I’ll go with you,” Link said, then tucked the slate away with finality. Beedle grinned at him, seeming genuinely delighted.
“Fantastic! We can trade at the stable, get you well supplied for the road there?”
Link chuckled softly, nodding.
“And we can rebandage your arm,” Beedle added casually. “Maybe use one of those fancy monster parts for an elixir of your own! I’ve got some lizards on me that should be good for it.”
Link clicked his tongue a few times, quiet and dismissive, but Mipha cleared her throat pointedly, and he sighed and nodded.